


A Day at the Beach

by Java_bean



Series: 200 Follower Fic Requests [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Carapaces, Earth C (Homestuck), Fluff, M/M, a lot of rock skipping, everything I write is basically fluff, having fun at the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 17:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13058535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Java_bean/pseuds/Java_bean
Summary: Dave and Karkat spend the day at the beach with their favorite carapacian





	A Day at the Beach

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request that I wrote a couple months ago for @amarandomperson. There's never enough stuff about Dave, Karkat and the Mayor spending time together, so I really loved writing this! I hope you like reading it :)

The Mayor’s been…busy ever since Can Town was founded on Earth C.  Not that you haven’t been busy yourself, but being a god and being a mayor are two entirely different things.  You feel like you haven’t seen the Mayor in forever.  But today he finally has a day off!  A day he said he wanted to spend with you and Karkat!  Hell yeah, it’ll be just like old times again!  Except this time you’re not on a meteor hurtling through the void towards a massive boss fight anymore. 

So like old times, but without all the shit weighing down on your mind all the time.  Old times but a fuck ton better.

You got out of bed the moment the sun came up, no point in wasting time sleeping right now.  You crawled out of bed and got dressed quickly before heading downstairs.  The strong smell of coffee hit you the moment you wandered into the kitchen.  Karkat’s standing by the counter, holding his face close to the steam.  He looks up at you as you enter and smiles.  

“Morning.”  He yawns.

“You’re up early.”  You pour yourself a cup of coffee.  “And you’re not grumbling my fucking ear off about how you’re days already ruined to shit by just the act of waking up and having your poor, fragile eyes immediately assaulted by the rays of this planet’s big scorch orb or whatever longwinded alien terminology you wanted to use for the morning’s rant.”

“Fuck you, dick ferret.”  Karkat hands you the sugar.  “I’m in a good mood today.”

“That’s rare.”

He snorts.  “You don’t think I know that?”

You pour a ton of creamer and sugar into your coffee and stir until it goes from dark brown to a light tan.  Honestly, you don’t even like coffee that much, but it does wake you up so at least it gets the job done.  You take a drink and swallow half of it in one gulp.  It burns your mouth a little, but you don’t mind.  You have things to do today, you can’t wait for your coffee to cool.

“When are we going to see the Mayor?”  Karkat asks.

“Damn, you’re not beating around the bush today.”  You take another sip of your coffee.

“I was never that into attacking shrubbery, Dave.”  He shrugs.  “I’m more interested in knowing when we’re going to leave.  Don’t tell me I wrenched myself from the grips of sleep for nothing.”

“There’s the morning hater I know and love.”

“Don’t sweet talk me and answer the question.”  

“I don’t know.  Soon, I guess.”  You shrug.  “As soon as possible.  Probably right after this.  And after you get dressed, obviously.”

You point out his pajamas.  Technically they’re not pajamas, they’re just the clothes he fell asleep in last night.  That’s usually the case with Karkat.  

He puts his empty cup in the sink.  “So if I change clothes, we can go?  Right now?”

“Yeah, right now.  I mean as long as the Mayor’s cool with it.”  There’s no way he wouldn’t be, but you whip out your phone and start texting anyway just to make sure. 

Karkat runs upstairs to get ready while you finish off your coffee.  You get a text back in the meantime.  The Mayor’s more than okay with you both coming over right now, and he’s just as excited to spend the day with you and Karkat.  

He comes back downstairs in shorts and a t-shirt.  “Okay, let’s go.”

Before you can even say anything in reply he grabs you by the wrist and starts dragging you out the door.  You barely have time to put your coffee cup down and get your shoes before your socks are wet with dew from the grass.  Karkat stops a few feet away from your house and turns around.  He’s still got your wrist in a steel grip.  “I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Yeah, I know.”  You roll your eyes.  “I got it.  I figured we would just fly there.  I know you hate doing it but it’ll be easier and a helluva lot faster than trying to hoof it from here.”

Karkat huffs but doesn’t protest.  Today is a day of firsts.  

You put an arm around him.  “We can stop on the ground again whenever if the height freaks you out.”

“Heights don’t freak me out.”  He says quickly.  His arms are around you in a death grip the moment his feet leave the ground.  Yeah, he’s not freaked out by heights.  And you’re a fucking horse.

It doesn’t take very long to get to the Mayor’s place like this (though it definitely would have been a shorter amount of time if Karkat wasn’t weighing you down, not that you really mind), you’re in the air for less than ten minutes before you land back on solid ground in Can Town, just a few feet away from his door.

Karkat lets go of you and you both take a moment to appreciate the beauty that is Can Town at this scale.  You’d both known that the Mayor had planned to build an actual town modeled after the one you’d both helped with on the meteor, but actually experiencing the town itself is always a treat.  One of these days you’re really going to have to take some time off and really explore the place.  

You wish you’d thought of that ahead of time, but that’s alright.  The plans you made for today should be just as fun.  You both walk over to the giant can the Mayor calls a house and knock on the door.

You don’t have to wait very long for the door to be flung open, and it’s only a split second later that the three of you are in the tightest group hug imaginable.  Seriously, if you were any closer to these two people right now, you’d be merging into the same organism.

You’re not sure who initiated the hug and who’s breaking it apart, but you’re a little sad it’s already ending.  It’s okay though because you’re still holding hands once the hug’s over with.  

The Mayor asks where you’re all planning on going, and Karkat turns to you, also curious about today’s destination.  It only occurs to you just now that even though you spent the past few days discussing this together you forgot to tell him what you’d finally decided on doing.  

“I was thinking we could go to the beach.”  You say.  “You know, walk around, watch the waves, soak up that sun, all that cliche crap.  It’ll be fun.”

You shrug as if you didn’t waste literal hours of your life coming up with this plan.  Karkat and the Mayor exchange a look that you can’t really read.  

Karkat’s the first to speak.  “I’ve never been to the beach.”  He admits, shrugging.  “It’s probably awful and I’ll hate it, but I’d like having another experience to complain about.”

The Mayor agrees, but is more enthusiastic about it than Karkat is.  

“Cool.”  You nod.  “I don’t think it’s too far a walk from here.  Karkat, you should be happy about that.”

“I told you, heights don’t freak me out!”  He snaps.  

“You’ve made your opinion about flying pretty vocally clear during multiple bitch fits in the past, I was just trying to be nice.”  You reply.  “Besides, I never said anything about heights.”

“Fuck you, ass mucus, it was implied.”  

“No, not even a little.”  

The three of you start walking as you and Karkat continue to bicker about whether or not you implied that Karkat was afraid of heights, a fact which he continues to claim he isn’t even though nobody believes him or even cares if he is.  The argument eventually peters to a close without reaching a real conclusion and you both turn your attention to chatting with the Mayor instead like you really should have been doing all along.  
The Mayor’s been up to a lot lately.  Right now he’s working on a big project, some sort of monument to people he knew before.  Other than that, things have been pretty normal for him.  The citizens all love him, and he participates in decision making with the leaders of the carapacian kingdom often (which makes sense because Rose and Kanaya know him personally and Roxy seems like she’d be open to that).  He’s busy, but he’s happy.  Everything’s been good for him so far. 

The same can be said for you and Karkat, and you take turns telling the Mayor everything you’ve done since you saw him last. Karkat does a lot of the talking, and you occasionally interrupt with a comment or something Karkat forgot to mention.  You like listening to them talk, you’ve never heard Karkat speak so softly to anyone else before.  It’s kind of endearing.

There’s salt on the breeze that you’ve never tasted before.  If you were being honest with yourself, one of the reasons you wanted to come here was because you’ve never seen the ocean in person.  You’d be lying if you said you weren’t relieved to find out that Karkat hasn’t seen it, either.

The three of you reach your destination, and you all stand here motionlessly and take it all in.  It’s bluer than you imagined, and surprisingly vast.  It looks endless from here, and you feel small and a little insignificant in comparison.  The feeling passes once you remember that this shit only exists because you helped create it in the first place.  Suck it, ocean.

You tear your eyes away from the water and glance over at the other two.  They both look just as entranced with the waves as you are.  You could probably waste a good chunk of time just holding hands and staring, mesmerized by the fucking current like a bunch of asshats.

“Wow.”  Karkat says, looking shocked at his own comment.  “It’s…really pretty.”

“I want to throw a rock at it.”  

Both of their heads snap over to you.  “Dave, what the fuck?”

“I have no other explanation besides this.”  You let go of the Mayor’s hand so you can give the most exaggerated shrug you can manage.  

“Well, moment’s ruined.  What the hell are we supposed to do now, Dave?”  He asks, raising an eyebrow at you.  “Or was staring at a giant salt puddle all that was on the itinerary today?” 

“That’s a pretty biting tone for someone who was way more than okay with doing that all day a second ago.”  You reply.  “But no, there’s more.  Like I said, there’s so much cliche shit we could do.  We did the staring at the waves part, so that’s a big check mark in the done square.  We could get closer and walk around in the sand, Karkat you strike me as the whole ‘I like long walks along the beach’ kind of guy, if I’m being honest here.  Or if that’s not really something you feel like doing because your poor toes are too sore to appreciate the sand right now since we walked all the way over here, then we could do something else.  Try to skip rocks or some shit.  Sand castles.  You know the drill.”

“No, I really don’t.”  He shakes his head.  “None of what you said made any fucking sense.  Are you having a stroke?”

“No, Karkat, I am not having a stroke, but thank you for your concern, I really appreciate it, dude.”  You start taking off your shoes and socks.  “If none of the things I suggested made any sense to you, then clearly that means we gotta do all that shit.  Right fucking now.  Don’t you think so, Mayor?”

He nods, and that’s all the confirmation you need before running off towards the water.  You reach the sand, and it’s warm under your feet.  Karkat and the Mayor follow behind you.  

“Why’d you take off your shoes?”  Karkat asks, staring at your already sand coated feet.  

You wiggle your toes at him.  “It’s part of the beach experience.  Come on, take yours off.”

He takes his shoes off reluctantly and holds them in one hand as he puts his feet carefully on the ground.  

“So, sand?”  You pry.  “Yea or nay?” 

“I could take it or leave it.”  He replies, looking down at his feet as he moves the sand around.  “I still prefer shoes and solid ground, but if I have to be barefoot on ground up rocks to get the full cliche experience, then fuck it, sure.  I’ll do it.”

He throws his shoes so they land near yours.  “So,”  he says, crossing his arms over his chest, “what are we doing first?”

“I don’t know about you,”  you stoop down and start digging through the sand, “but I still want to throw a rock at it.”

You manage to find a smooth, good sized rock deep in the sand.  “I figured skipping rocks would be a good start.”

You fling your rock at the ocean as a demonstration.  You don’t actually know how to skip a rock, so it just plunks right into the water.  

“Dave, that didn’t skip.”  Karkat points out.

“How the fuck would you know?  You didn’t even think skipping rocks was a thing until a couple seconds ago.”

“Yeah, but even I know that’s not what a skipped rock looks like.”

“Well why don’t you do it, then, if you’re such an expert at rock skipping?”  You goad.

Karkat takes the bait without hesitation.  “Okay, give me a rock and I’ll do it.”  He holds out his hand to you.

You push his hand away.  “I can’t do that.  Finding your own rocks is an integral part of this practice, man.  You gotta do it yourself.  It wouldn’t count if I did it for you.”

“Fine.”  His hands are on his hips.  “Just you wait, I’m going to find a great rock and I’m going to skip the fuck out of it while you stand there, shamefaced and completely owned by me, a total rock skipping noob.  Get ready to grovel at my feet, Dave.”

“Grovel?”  You smirk.  “Now that sounds like a challenge, Karkat.  Are you sure you want to go through with that?”

“Fuck yeah, I do.”  He nods.  “Based on your severe lack of skill, I think I stand a good chance of winning.”

“Oh, is that so?  In that case, you’re on!  Mayor, do you want in on this, or are you cool with judging?”

The Mayor picks up a rock.  He’s in.  

“Okay, cool.”  You nod.  “So here’s what we’re gonna do.  We’re going to take four minutes to split up and scour the beach for rocks to throw, and when those four minutes are up we’ll meet back here with our rocks and start throwing them.  The first person whose rock actually skips will be declared the winner, and Karkat will have to lick all the sand off of my feet.”

“That’s only if you win, right?”  

“Nope.  You have to bathe my nasty, sand covered feet clean with your tongue regardless of who wins.  Sorry, bro, I don’t make the rules.”

“Yes, you do!  You just made that rule just now!”  

“Wow, what the fuck, Karkat, I can’t believe you’re accusing me of making up rules.  I’ll have you know that that’s always been a rule in rock skipping competitions.  You have to lick my feet, that’s just how this game is.”

“If you put your vile sand frond anywhere near my face I’ll skip my rocks off your shades.”

“Oh, is that a threat?”

“Yes, obviously it’s a threat, you dense piece of moldy grubloaf.”

The Mayor intervenes before this can escalate into a contest to see who can throw the best insult at the other’s face and gets you back on track to what it actually is, a contest to see who can throw the best rock.

“How will we know the four minutes are over?”  Karkat asks, tilting his head.  

That’s a good question.  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll keep track of the time and yell for you guys when time’s up.”

“And we’re supposed to meet up right back here?”

“That’s the plan, yeah.”  You nod.

“How the fuck are we supposed to find right here?  I mean, look around for a second, Dave, this all looks the fucking same.  How am I supposed to differentiate this exact spot from all of the other identical spots on this sand strip?”

Before you can come up with an answer, the Mayor draws a big ‘X’ in the sand between you and Karkat with his foot.

“Like that.”  You point at the 'X’.  “That should help you find your way back easier, as long as you keep looking at the ground.”

Karkat studies the 'X’ carefully and nods.  “Yeah, that should help.  Thanks, Mayor.”

“Okay, so we’re meeting back here in four.”  They both nod.  “Ready….go!”

You all split up, and you start searching frantically along the beach for some good rocks.  You find a good amount closer to the water where the sand is damp and grab as many as you can before the four minutes are up.  When the time’s run out, you make your way back with an entire pile of rocks in your arms.  

Karkat and the Mayor have both also found a good amount of rocks, and their’s are already lain down on the ground before you get there.

“Well, Karkat, why don’t you start?”  You say as you promptly dump your rocks next to you.  “Show me up at skipping rocks.  Right here, right now.”

“Oh, you bet I’ll show you.”  He picks up a rock.  From the very limited knowledge you have about skipping rocks, you know his isn’t going to work very well.  He winds up like he’s about to throw a baseball, which is also not what you’re supposed to do, and tosses it into the water.

It makes a fair amount of distance before it hits the water, you’ll give him that much.  You knew this was going to be the end result, but you can’t help but laugh anyway. “That was awful.”

He bristles.  “Shut up!  You didn’t do any better.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m definitely closer to skipping a rock than you are.”  You toss one of yours, and even though it doesn’t skip it still looks like a better throw than Karkat’s was.  That’s really all that matters.

Karkat picks up another rock and holds it in his hands.  “I’m going to put you in your place, Dave.  Mark my words, I’m going to kick your ass by getting this rock to skip before you even know what hit you.”  

He throws it underhand this time, and it splashed unceremoniously into the water.  Karkat growls in frustration, already pissed off at his inability to throw a god damn rock the way he wants to.

“My guess is it’s going to be a rock.”  You reply as you toss one of your rocks.  It falls in with a thunk.  “You’ll have a better chance at hitting me than you would getting any of those misshapen petrified shits to skip.”

He yells and throws another one.  It goes right in the water again.  

You throw another one, and it plops right into the water just like the rest of them.  It’s not much longer before you’re both shouting and throwing rocks into the water without any intention of even trying to get them to skip across.  Your supply of rocks is depleted sooner than expected. 

You both stand there, breathing hard and watching the waves crashing against the shore.  
   
“So who the fuck won?”  You wonder out loud.

“It’s a tie.”  Karkat says, kicking the sand.  “We’re out of rocks and we both suck.”

“That’s true.  Fine, a tie it is.”  You turn on your heel and are about ready to suggest something else when you notice that the Mayor still has his rocks piled by his feet.  “Mayor, how come you didn’t throw any of yours?”

He shrugs.  You and Karkat looked like you were having fun, he didn’t want to interrupt.

You feel bad for accidentally leaving him out.  That’s the opposite of what this day’s supposed to be about.  “Before we do anything else, you should at least throw one.  You were a part of this competition, too.”

“Didn’t he already win, since we both tied for last?”  

“Well yeah, but you can’t be a real winner without throwing at least one rock.”

The Mayor takes a rock off of his pile.  You and Karkat both watch as he approaches the water slowly before throwing it.

It skips.

It skips five fucking times.

“Holy shit.”

“Is that what we were supposed to be doing?”  Karkat asks incredulously.  “I don’t think I’m physically capable of doing that.”

“Yeah, me neither.”  You admit.  “Fuck, he made it look so easy.  Mayor, how the hell did you do that?”

He doesn’t answer you and throws another rock.  This one also skips.  He picks up another one and tosses it.  That one skips, too.  Damn, all this time you spent with the Mayor and you didn’t even know he was a rock skipping champion.  You think you know a guy.

“Could you show us how to do that?”  Karkat asks after the Mayor’s fourth rock skips three times across the water.

The Mayor nods and places a rock in both Karkat’s and your hands.  You watch carefully as he gives a slow demonstration of what he’s doing.  You both try to copy him as best you can.  Yours still falls right in.  Karkat somehow manages to get his to skip once.  Just the once.

Once is enough, though.

“I did it!”  Karkat yells excitedly, pumping his fist in the air.  “Fucking finally!  Dave, did you see that?  Mine skipped!  I beat you!”

“Yeah, I saw.”  You sigh in defeat.  As much as you would have loved to beat him, you don’t really mind losing.  Karkat’s so fucking ecstatic about winning a dumb rock throwing game, it’s actually adorable.  “I guess I just can’t skip rocks.”

“You’re damn right, you can’t!”  Karkat grins.  “And now you have to french my sand foot!”

“Whoa, wait, I never agreed to that.”

“Yes, you did!  Don’t lie to me, Dave.  Loser has to kiss my feet, sorry them’s the rules.  I don’t make them, I just enforce them.  Now get down and do it, asshole.”

“No, that’s gross.”

“Of course it’s gross, but you have to do it because you lost.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Do it or I’ll rub my foot on your face.”

“Fine,”  you start inching backwards, “do it.”

“I will,”  he moves closer to you, “just stop moving first.”

“No,”  you shake your head and take another step backwards, “if you really want to shove your foot all up in my beautiful grill, you’re going to have to catch me first.”

You bolt, kicking up sand as you run away.  Karkat and the Mayor start chasing you all along the beach.  You run as fast as you can, only a couple steps ahead of the other two the whole time.  Karkat gets close to catching you a few times, you can feel his fingers brush against you every once in awhile.  

You come to a stop without warning when you start to feel like you can’t run anymore.  Karkat and the Mayor both run into you, and you all topple over into a heap in the sand.  You roll over so your face isn’t pressed into the sand anymore.

“Do you give up yet?”  Karkat asks, he’s breathing directly into your face.  His breath smells like coffee and toothpaste.  

You wrinkle your nose.  “I got sand in my mouth, does that count?”

“Yeah, that can count, if you want to be a grub about it.”  Karkat replies, snorting.

“I do want to be a grub about it.”  You say.  “That’s what I am, a big ol’ baby bug.  Are you happy now?”

“As long as you can live with yourself being a big grub, then yeah, I am.”  He shrugs, flopping off of you and onto the sand.

You start making a sand angel.  “What do you guys want to do next?”

“I don’t know.”  Karkat says, throwing his hands over his head.  “We skipped rocks, we did the whole long walk along the beach thing, what else is there?”

“We could try building a sand castle, maybe splash around in the waves a little.  Lunch would eventually be a good idea, too.  Mayor, what do you want to do?”

The Mayor’s still sprawled halfway on you.  He taps his fingers on your stomach while he thinks about his options.  He settles on building a sand castle.  That should be fun.

You didn’t bring anything to try and build a sand castle, so you all try your best to pile sand into something resembling a structure with just your hands.  It doesn’t go very well and you just end up with a sand dome that keeps crumbling every time you try to add more to it.

You pack on too much at once, and your sand tower falls over from too much weight and half covers the Mayor with sand.  

“Well, shit.”  Karkat sighs, dropping the handfuls of sand he’d carried over onto the ground.  “There goes all our hard work for nothing.”

“Hold up, there’s another thing we could do.”  You say.  “We could bury the Mayor.  You know, if he’s okay with that.”

“But we like him, why the fuck would we do that?”

“Because it’s a weird fun human thing that weird fun humans do.”  You explain.  “And we’re not actually going to bury him, his head will still be uncovered still.  Mayor, you cool with getting buried?  You’re already half covered.”

He nods.  You and Karkat start covering him with the sand from your failed castle until you can’t see anything except his head anymore.  

“Okay,”  Karkat pats another clump of wet sand over the Mayor’s feet, “this was fun, what do we do now?”

You shrug.  “I don’t know.  Dig him out?”

“But we just finished burying him.”  

You lay back down in the sand.  “Bury me?”

“No, fuck that.”  Karkat stands up.  “There’s too much of you to bury, it’ll take forever and I don’t want to.  I have better things to do.”

“Do you?”  You sit up.  “Like what?”

“This.”  He marches straight over to the water and jumps in ankle deep before running right back out again.  “Fuck, never mind, that was terrible and I regret so much.”

He shoves his feet right back into the sand.  “What else should we do?”

You give it a long thought.  “We could break for lunch?  I got picnic stuff in my sylladex.”

Karkat and the Mayor exchange yet another one of those looks.  The Mayor thinks lunch sounds like a good idea.

“Yeah.”  Karkat agrees.  “I could eat.”

The Mayor gets himself unburied, and the three of you head back up to the grass.  You lay a blanket down and all your lunch stuff, and you all sit down and watch the water while you eat.  
   
After you finish with lunch, you go right back to the water’s edge.  You chase each other and splash around and play in the sand for hours, right up until it gets colder and the sun starts to set.  
   
The three of you head back up to the Mayor’s house and drop him off.  You’re both sad to leave him, but he still has things he has to do tomorrow, and technically so do you.  You’re already all making plans for next time, when you want to get a full tour of Can Town.  The Mayor is more than happy with this arrangement and is already thinking up which destinations to go to first when you leave him.

“Okay,”  you wrap an arm around Karkat, “are you ready to go?”

“Can’t we just walk for a little bit?”  Karkat grumbles, dragging his feet.  “It’s such a nice night, and I don’t want to go home yet.”

“Please, you just don’t want to fly.”

“That, too.”  He agrees, shrugging.  “I’m not ashamed to admit it, I’d rather go on a long walk with you than a short trip being carried like a bunch of god damned luggage.”

“You’re not luggage.”  You ruffle his hair.  “But we can walk around for a little bit longer if you want.”

“Yeah,”  he nods, nuzzling into your chest a bit.  Karkat’s still sweaty and hot from all the running around you both did.  You feel sticky, but it’s alright.  “that’d be good.”

Karkat made a good point, it’s nice out tonight, and it’s even nicer having him here with you.  You walk around together with Karkat’s head on your shoulder while the moon rises and the stars blink to life above you to light your path back home.


End file.
